Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has given approval to the revenue department to go ahead with the negative list on services so that it could be implemented from the next fiscal. The list is important to roll out a uniform goods and services tax regime that the government intends to introduce soon.At the meeting with finance secretary RS Gujral, CBEC chairman SK Goel and other senior officials of the revenue department on December 20, the minister asked the department to work on the implementation of the new system.

In the negative list, almost all services except a select few would under the tax net. Currently, 117 services are taxed at a rate of 10%. Service taxes are a high-growth revenue source for the government in a country where services account for more than half of the GDP.